1) Murs Love & Rockets Vol. 1: The Transformation (DD172)

2) J. Cole Cole World: The Sideline Story (Roc Nation)

3) 9th Wonder The Wonder Years (It's A Wonderful World Music Group)

4) Dessa Castor, The Twin (Doomtree)

5) Danny Brown XXX (Fools Gold)

Thanks to ever-knowledgeable E-Lit at the Amoeba Berkeley store for the latest Top 5 Hip-Hop chart and in-depth overview of the many new hip-hop releases: many underground ones that you may not otherwise hear about.  These include Top Five entrants from both one-of-a-kind Detroit emcee Danny Brown (XXX) and Doomtree female artist Dessa (Castor, The Twin CD which comes with a limited edition fiction book Sleeping With Nikki - if you pick it up at Amoeba Berkeley). Also on the new Top Five are the ever popular J Cole album (#1 in the US this past week), the brand new Ski Beatz produced Murs album (Love & Rockets Vol. 1), and 9th Wonder The Wonder Years.  Other artists with brand new or recently released hip-hop releases include Bored Stiff's White Mic, Madlib,  The Knux, RJD2, DJ Drama, Boom Bip,  Evidence (Cats & Dogs), and maker of the new album This Is Our Science - Astronautalis who, as E Lit was mentioning in the above interview about his Bay Area concert earlier this week, is a truly gifted freestyle artist. Below are a slew of new videos from some of these hip-hop artists as well as some other ones including  the brand new videos from Indecent the Slapmaster along with the best of Vallejo rap talent and  Eligh & Amp Live that is taken from their forthcoming collaboration album Therapy at 3. Oh and don't forget that today (October 14th) at 6pm at the San Francisco Amoeba store that Mayer Hawthorne will be doing a live in-store DJ set and signing of his new second album How Do You Do (note on Universal this time out for the former Stones Throw act) . Details here.

1) Ghostface Killah Apollo Kids (Def Jam)

2) Andre Nickatina & Tha Jacka My Middle Name Is Crime EP (I-Khan Distribution)

3) Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam)

4) David Banner & 9th Wonder Death of a Pop Star (b.i.G.f.a.c.e. / Entertainment One Music)

5) Kid Cudi Man On The Moon 2: The Legend of Mr. Rager (Universal/Motown) 

Shout out to Luis at the San Francisco Amoeba store for supplying this week's top five chart. Since it's the first week of the new year, the chart entries are all late 2010 releases, with all but Kid Cudi and Kanye West dropping in December. Both Wu Tang Clan member Ghostface Killah's recommended, classic soul fueled Apollo Kids (Def Jam), which I wrote about in last week's Hip-Hop Rap Up, and David Banner & 9th Wonder's Death of a Pop Star (b.i.G.f.a.c.e. / Entertainment One Music) each dropped on December 21st and despite their release date (a period when typically albums get lost in the holiday madness) fans have managed to discover both wonderful releases.



While on the surface the pairing of mainstream rapper/producer David Banner with less mainstream North Carolina producer 9th Wonder might seem like an unlikely match, it is not. Banner's history dates back to Crooked Lettaz, his late nineties group that preceded his major label mainstream successes with such hits as "Play" and "Like A Pimp." And with this release, on which he has wisely fully relinquished all production duties to 9th Wonder, he marks a return to his roots. Deliberately titled Death of a Pop Star, Banner has connected with the smaller scale label Entertainment One (aka e One) -- formerly Koch -- in order to maintain more creative control (something he claims he did not have with the bigger labels).

1) E40 Revenue Retrievin'- Day Shift (Heavy on the Grind Ent.)

2) E40 Revenue Retrievin'- Night Shift (Heavy on the Grind Ent.)

3) The Young Jazz Rebels Slave Riot (Stones Throw)

4) Madlib Medicine Show 3-Beat Konducta in Africa (Stones Throw)

5) Murs & 9th Wonder Fornever (SMC Recordings)

E40, aka Forty Wata, aka E-Feezy, aka the long reigning King of Bay Rap, is riding high with his latest two-part Shifts, the pair of simultaneously released CDs Revenue Retrievin'- Day Shift and Revenue Retrievin'- Night Shift (both on Heavy on the Grind Ent.) which for the third week in a row top the Amoeba Music Hip-Hop Charts. After two weeks of riding high at the San Francisco and Hollywood charts, this week the longtime Vallejo rapper locks down the number one and two spots at Amoeba Music Berkeley. The Bay Area has always supported E40 over the past two decades, both as a solo artist and with and his extended family group The Click, although I remember back in the very early days how some hip-hop fans just couldn't get their heads around E40's most unusual rapid pace flow, peppered with his homemade language (slanguage), unlike anything anyone had heard at the time. At first, I remember, it is mainly the younger kids who really dug "Mr Flamboyant" and other early tracks from this unique wordsmith. But by the mid 90's, when 40 and The Click were signed to Jive, most everyone else had caught up with his trademark rap style. By sticking to who he is artistically, E40 has proven that the key to success is to always be yourself. By so doing you are setting the trends, not following them, and end up sticking around a lot longer.

1) Murs/9th Wonder Sweet Lord
(Record Collection)

2) Atmosphere God Loves Ugly (Rhymesayers)

3) Dälek Gutter Tactics (Ipecac)

4) X-Clan Mainstream Outlawz
(Suburban Noize)

5) Cappadonna Slang Prostitution
(ChamberMusik Records)

Thanks to Luis at Amoeba Music San Francisco for supplying this week's Hip-Hop Top FIve chart of the best selling albums of the week at the Haight Street store where the new number one is the album Sweet Lord by Murs and 9th Wonder. It was recorded about two years ago by the Los Angeles emcee and the North Carolina producer but not first released until a few months when it was made available as a digital download only; the album is only just now available to buy on CD. 9th Wonder, who is one of the best and most in-demand hip-hop producers today, and Murs, who is among the brightest and most gifted lyricists in the genre, have worked together before. Most recently they collaborated on a few tracks off of Murs' major label debut Murs For President, released on Warner in late September. In the studio they have a wonderful chemistry. As Murs raps on the Sweet Lord track "Are You Ready?" -- "Welcome ye'all to the 9th Wonder, Murs' dream. Ghetto music with a purpose..two of the world's most respected musicians are now at work. I suggest you listen."

The rest of the ten track album is really, really good (you wouldn't expect less from the talented duo) and features such other standout songs as "Free," "It's For Real," and "Nina Ross." "Nina Ross," which is a very clever song, is one of those great hip-hop tracks that draws you in thinking it is (yet) another tale of a hip-hop guy scamming on girls or (in this case) on the one girl, Nina Ross. Instead Murs flips things up in this engaging tale. And as the story unfolds it turns out that Nina is the one in control of the situation and that the guy is the one been taken advantage of -- or rather being taught a lesson for his past sexist & explloitive attitudes & deeds towards women.